tut1.txt

1 - What you already know. (should know)

=========================== Aliens Bash Tutorial ==============================
--------------- Written by Billy Wideling <-> alien@koping.net ----------------
===============================================================================

First you probably need to read a UNIX command bible to really understand this
tutorial, but I will try to make it as clear as possible, there is about
100-150 UNIX commands explained later in this tutorial.
You are to have some UNIX experience before starting on this tutorial, so
if you feel that you have UNIX/Linux experience feel free to start to learn
here.
What I included here is general shell scripting, most common other things
and some UNIX commands.
Here's the most common shell types:

bash  = Bourne again shell
sh    = shell
csh   = C shell
tcsh  = Tenex C shell (not tab-completion-extended C shell)
tclsh = Tcl shell
ksh   = korn shell
ash   = a shell
bsh   = bourne shell ? (in most Linux distributions it's a link to /bin/ash)
zsh   = the Z shell (it's what it's manual page tells about it .. :/ )

===============================================================================


1 - What you already know. (should know)

===============================================================================

Here we go, bash scripting is nothing more then combining lots of UNIX commands
to do things for you, you can even make simple games in bash
(just UNIX commands) or as in normal cases, batch files to control things
in your computer.



There is a variety of easier and harder examples in the beginning of this
tutorial, I've done it this way to make it easier for people to get the
general picture, so they will get more of the "aha!" experiences in the later
chapters of this tutorial. What bash or any scripting language does is to call
for pre-made programs that lives in your computer.
So when you write a command in a script you are calling a command that is
a part of the system.
That is why this tutorial will be just as much a Linux and UNIX tutorial
as a shell scripting tutorial.

I will however not take up much about The X Windows System in this
tutorial, for the simple reason that a Window Manager does nothing else
then display programs.

This means that a Window Manager is like a graphical shell for the system.
You can do all in this tutorial from any terminal emulator in a Linux
Graphical Environment (The X Windows System).
A terminal emulator would be such as: Eterm, xterm, axvt, rxvt, kterm etc.
A terminal emulator let's you get up a terminal with a command prompt
in a graphical window.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shell command separator/control characters:

|  = pipe will take the first commands stdout as the second commands stdin.
|| = OR if first command is false, it will take the second.
|= = OR IS (mostly used in if statements)
&& = AND if first command is true, it will execute the second one.
!  = NOT (mostly used in if and test statements), but as a shell-command
     it opens a shell to run the command (ex. `! echo foo`)
!= = NOT IS (mostly used in if statements)
!$ = last commands last argument
!! = repeat last command
=  = IS (mostly used in if statements)
;  = will separate 2 commands as if they were written on separate command lines
;; = end of a case function in a case statement. (see `case` further down)
$  = prefix to a variable like "$myvar"
$! = PID of the last child process.
$$ = PID of current process (PID == Process ID)
$0 = Shows program that owns the current process.
$1 = First argument supplied after the program/function on execution.
$2 = Second argument supplied after the program/function on execution. ($3 etc.)
$# = Shows the number of arguments.
$? = Any argument (good to use in `if` statements)
$- = current option flags (I never ever had to use this one)
$_ = Last argument/Command
$* = All arguments
$@ = All arguments
#  = commented line, anything on a line after "#" will be overlooked by the script
{  = start braces (starts a function)
}  = end braces   (ends a function)
[  = start bracket (multiple-argument specifiers)
]  = end bracket (multiple-argument specifiers)
@  = $@ is equivalent to "$1" "$2" etc. (all arguments)
*  = wild card (* can substitute any number of characters)
?  = wild card (? can substitute any single character)
"  = quote
'  = precise quote. (Will even include "'s in the quote)
`  = command quote. (variable=`ls -la` doing $variable will show the dir list)
.  = dot will read and execute commands from a file, ( . .bashrc )
&  = and. as suffix to executed file makes it go to the background(./program &)
0> = stdin stream director (I never seen this used in any script)
1> = stdout stream director (standard output)
2> = stderr stream director (standard error output)
%  = job character, %1 = fg job 1, %2 = fg job 2, etc.
>> = stream director append to a file
<< = stdin stream director. (cat > file << EOF ; anything ; EOF)
>  = stream director that will start at the top of the file
    (in if statements < and > may be used as greater-then
    and lesser-then, as: if [ "$1" >= "2" ])
  = back-slash, takes away any special meaning with a character,
     $var will not be treated as a variable.
     (and a new line will not be treated as a new line)
     Also a  before a command, removes any alias on the command as: rm
>& = stream director to stream director, ie. echo "a" 1>/dev/null 2>&1
     this directs 2> to the same place as 1>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the basic UNIX or rather Linux directory structur:

/ (system root)
 _______________________________|____________________________________
 |    |	    |	 |     |    |	    |	      |	   |	  |    |    |
bin/ boot/ dev/ etc/ home/ lib/ lost+found/ proc/ root/ sbin/ usr/ var/
 |    |     |    |     |    |       |         |    |      |    |    |
 |    |     |    |     |    |       |         |    |      |    |    |-> various
 |    |     |    |     |    |       |         |    |      |    |
 |    |     |    |     |    |       |         |    |      |    |-> Read later..
 |    |     |    |     |    |       |         |    |      |
 |    |     |    |     |    |       |         |    |      |-> Superuser Binaries
 |    |     |    |     |    |       |         |    |
 |    |     |    |     |    |       |         |    |-> User roots home dir
 |    |     |    |     |    |       |         |
 |    |     |    |     |    |       |         |-> system info etc.
 |    |     |    |     |    |       |
 |    |     |    |     |    |       |-> Orphan files (look here after crashes)
 |    |     |    |     |    |
 |    |     |    |     |    |-> System / programming libraries
 |    |     |    |     |
 |    |     |    |     |-> Contains the user accounts home directories
 |    |     |    |
 |    |     |    |-> System configuration files.
 |    |     |
 |    |     |-> Devices
 |    |
 |    |-> The kernel and kernel maps.
 |
 |-> Executeble files. (binaries)

The /usr directory contains a whole lot of things, mainly user accessible
things, like binaries in /usr/local/bin/ and /usr/bin/ also libraries
in /usr/lib/ and /usr/local/lib/.
The kernel source should also be under /usr, in /usr/src/linux/
But more about that later.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's an example of the following files locations:
/dev/null
/dev/fd0
/etc/passwd
/home/alien/.profile
/usr/local/bin/BitchX
/
 _______________________________|____________________________________
 |    |     |    |     |    |       |         |    |      |    |    |
bin/ boot/ dev/ etc/ home/ lib/ lost+found/ proc/ root/ sbin/ usr/ var/
            |    |     |                                       |
            |    |   alien/                                  local/
            |    |     |                                       |
            |    |     |-> .profile                            |
            |    |-> passwd                                   bin/
            |                                                  |
            |-> null                                           |-> BitchX
            |-> fd0

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And a final example that's a bit more stripped, just in case you are really
new to computers.
Here following files locations:

/dev/null
/dev/audio
/dev/hda1
/etc/passwd
/etc/shadow
/home/alien/.profile
/home/alien/tmp/somefile
/home/user/.bash_profile
/usr/local/bin/BitchX
/sbin/shutdown
/
  _____________________________|_____________________________
  |              |             |            |              |
 dev/           etc/         home/-----    usr/          sbin/
  |              |             |      |     |              |
  |-> null       |             |      |   local/           |-> shutdown
  |-> audio      |             |      |     |
  |-> hda1       |             |      |    bin/
                 |-> passwd  alien/   |     |
                 |-> shadow    |     user/  |-> BitchX
                               |      |
                               |      |-> .bash_profile
                               |
                               |-> .profile
                               |
                              tmp/
                               |
                               |-> somefile

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is the same structure as on any Operating System that uses directories,
Though some Operating Systems may call the / directory C: and some other
may call it HD etc.
And of course some of the directory names in Linux/UNIX are UNIX specific.

No further explanation should be necessary.

After reading this tutorial, brows around the system and try to learn
what all the files does, just don't remove any files you didn't put there
until your ABSOLUTLEY sure of what you are doing.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a few UNIX commands just for illustration:

echo
======
	echo will *echo* anything you add to it like this:

	alien:~$ echo "blah"
	blah
	alien:~$

	To get it to echo without a new line add the suffix -n
	like this:

	alien:~$ echo -n "blah "
	blah alien:~$

	I'll get back to why you want to do "-n" sometimes in a while.

read
======
	read will read from the keyboard (stdin) and save it as a variable
	the variable name goes after the read command, like this:

	alien:~$ read myvar
	<here I type say "blah">

	alien:~$ echo $myvar
	blah
	alien:~$

	To combine these two commands (echo and read) in a small script
	line, it can look like this:

	alien:~$ echo -n "password: " ; read pass ; echo "Your pass is $pass"
	password: <here I type "mypass">
	Your pass is mypass
	alien:~$

	Get the basic idea ?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyway, here are some commands that you should know before moving on with this
tutorial -

[*] after == important to know.
[X] after == very basics will do.
ls	[*]     Ex: ls -la		Long directory listing.
echo	[*]	Ex: echo "foo"		Does what it says.
cat	[*]	Ex: cat /etc/passwd	Dump out the content of a file.
less	[X]	Ex: less /etc/passwd	Scroll up and down in a file (q = exit)
head	[X]	Ex: head -5 /etc/passwd	Get the 5 (-5) first lines of a file.
tail	[X]	Ex: tail -7 /etc/passwd	Get the 7 (-7) last lines of a file.
grep	[*]	Ex: grep x /etc/issue   Dump lines containing x from /etc/issue
chmod	[*]	Ex: chmod a+x file	Give everyone executable rights to file
chown	[X]	Ex: chown root file	Change owner of file to root.
(cd     [-]     Ex: cd /etc             Change Directory to /etc)
Some applications you need to know how to operate (basics will do) :
any text editor (preferably emacs or vi - they are explaind last in this file)
telnet		Ex: telnet 127.0.0.1	Opens a connection to IP 127.0.0.1
lynx		Ex: lynx http://foo.bar A command line based web browser.
ftp (ncftp)	Ex: ncftp ftp://foo.bar A command line based ftp client.
ssh             Ex: ssh 127.0.0.1	Opens a secure connection to 127.0.0.1

These are all explained fully later in this tutorial.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now don't sit there and ask yourself how's going to teach you the commands
or applications I just listed here above. use the manual pages.
like this:

man echo

that will get you the full manual on the command echo :)
man works the same way with applications that you have the manual pages for.
To get out of the manual page just press the letter "q".
"q" quits it and bet's you back to the command line prompt.
man uses all the normal "less" commands.
Or read further down in this tutorial in the basic Linux/UNIX commands and
operations section (8).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The key to shell scripting just as with any programming language/Operating
System is to REALLY understand what you are doing, so do read this file
more then once, and don't read it to fast.

Take your time and let it sink in, so you know what it's all about,
and do take time to read manual pages and do some playing with the commands
so you learn them.

Now that should be enough of what you *should* know before starting to learn

UNIX shell scripting.

So here we go.......